Israel Police has recommend that the state prosecution charge Rabbi Avraham Sherman, a former judge in the High Rabbinical Court, on suspicion of fraud, breach of trust, obstruction of justice, and abuse of office, Srugim reported.

Rabbi Sherman was questioned under caution, with the approval of the Attorney General. The investigation material shows that Rabbi Sherman issued a decision to release from prison a husband who was refusing to give his wife a get. Police suspect that Rabbi Sherman formulated his views and decisions in the case in response to outside pressure, in violation of court regulations.

In May, 2008, three Rabbinical Court judges, headed by Rabbi Sherman, issued a judgment that effectively annulled all conversions performed as of 1999 by Rabbi Chaim Druckman, who was head of the rabbinic conversion system. The decision came down following a decision by a rabbinic court in Ashdod to revoke the conversion of a woman—converted by Rabbi Druckmen—who turned out not to be observant. The woman appealed to the High Rabbinic Court, which confirmed the lower court decision and went on to delete the rest of rabbi Druckman’s conversions, disregarding the consequent suffering inflicted on numerous Israeli families.

Following a complaint by Rabbi Druckman, the judicial ombudsman Tova Strasberg-Cohen decided that Rabbi Sherman relied “on an anonymous file not introduced in evidence,” and recommended to remove him, a recommendation supported by then Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann. But the Commission on the appointment of judges did approve the ombudsman’s recommendation.

In late 2008, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz appealed to the Supreme Court to reject the decisions of the rabbinical court in Ashdod and the High Rabbinical Court, and recognize Rabbi Druckman’s conversion.

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It was quite irregular for Dayan Sherman to try to cancel conversions under the authority of the Chief Rabbi, who is also president of the Rabbinical High Court, of which Dayan Sherman was a member. A Danish women who converted under Rabbi Drukman and married a Jewish man, asked for a Get and had been refused on the grounds she had not properly converted and therefore was never Jewish. The case brought the official Israeli Rabbinate into disrepute however you chose to look at the case. Dayan Sherman produced a fifty page attack on Rabbi Drukman, which was not the issue.

I was converted (strictly orthodox) in 1978, became the fleishig mashgiach in 1979 and made aliya in December, 1980. I was used as a "surgical experiment" at Shaare Tzedek Hospital in 1985, a a week or so before Pesach. I was released from the hospital shortly after the surgery, just before Pesach, celebrated the seder and almost died, my temperature rising to 44.9C. The 'doctor' had injected me with infected blood, and it was not discovered until last June that I have had Hepatitis "C" since before Pesach, 1985, and the treatment would probably kill me. My wife abandoned me to die just after the High Holy Days in 1986, and I have not been in contact with any of our six kids since 1989 (she simply denied me the right to see the kids, and I know they wanted to see me). Because I am a victim of admitted surgical malpractice and am dying of this horrible disease and suffer ongoing, unrelieved agony, no doctor wanting to involve themselves with me due to my ongoing problems. I am desperate for assistance in both finding proper, compatible medical care, and want likewise desperately to return to Israel (I am a citizen since 1983), but have no place to live, am quasi-paraplegic, and unable to walk, and the problem with Hepatitis is even greater. The Israel medical establishment is refusing to answer any of my communications, and the Israel Embassy in Canada has told me not to contact them in any way, since it is obvious that as a victim of deliberate surgical malpractice, I, the victim, am clearly at fault for all of this mess, right? Nonsense! I, as a citizen of Israel, demand my rights to just treatment for the problems caused me by these people, and hope that I will be able to locate some real Jews that will at least give me consideration as a fellow Jew (v'ahavta l'arecha k'mocha), and somehow find me the assistance I need to obtain my legal rights to legal and medical assistance (and housing) so that I will at least be able to see my beloved daughter and her three children and hold them in my arms before I die if that is what is to be. Most cordially and sincerely, Mr. Eliezer Chaim Avraham ben Avraham Dvir, 210 – 415 Alexander Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6A 4G6. Canada

Eli Beer stunned the 16,500 AIPAC conference participants by arriving on stage with lights and sirens blaring on an ambucycle, a specially equipped motorcycle ambulance designed by United Hatzalah to speed up emergency response times.